November 30th, 2011

Animal abuse, update.

Well, the dog's owner has been turned in to the authorities - I want to say the Humane Society, but I'm not sure - by her own daughter. The doctor who saw the dog is being asked to corroborate, which she is doing. The daughter also apparently said that the story her mother told, about being in the hospital for three weeks and then coming back and discovering the dog's injury, is a complete lie.

I'm sorry that a family will likely be torn apart by this, but... yeah, I'm glad the daughter did that.

November 2nd, 2011

Well, there's something to be said for a vivid imagination.

11/2/1105:31 pm

So, a client and her daughter come into the exam room, hand the dog off to the doctor to be weighed, and head off to the bathroom. After they left, the doctor looked at me and said, "That little girl just handed me the leash to her imaginary dog."

"Aww," I said. "That's kinda cute."

"I think it's a little disturbing. Maybe it's just me, I never had any imaginary friends or anything like that when I was younger."

"Really? I had zillions."

(And now you know where my fanfic comes from.)

The client-and-daughter return and it's Back To Business, and it is then that we discover that the little girl is what my mother would call A Talker. And she is only interested in one subject.

"Well, she ate something she shouldn't have a couple of weeks ago..." says the client.

"And Brooke!"

"She's shedding so much these days, it must be the season."

"And Brooke!"

"So she'll be getting three shots today..."

"And Brooke!"

Brooke, we are informed, is the name of the Invisible Dog.

Me, I'm keeping my head down and holding on to Millie the Visible Dog, but not only is Brooke in the room with us, she is apparently sharing the exam table with her transluscently-challenged sister. When the doctor goes to take Millie's temperature (and if you have ever taken a dog to the vet, you know how we do that), the little girl wants to know what Brooke's temperature is. When the doctor looks in Millie's ears, the little girl chatters about Brooke's ears. When the doctor informs the client that Millie should come in to have her teeth cleaned, Brooke is, apparently, in need of a dental appointment as well.

Meanwhile, I'm still stuck wondering how in the world one takes the temperature of an invisible dog. I have enough trouble finding the relevant orifice on the hairier specimens of visible dog. The doctor, meanwhile, is just weirded out. Fortunately, the exam and vaccination of Millie seems to satisfy the little girl that Brooke has been taken care of as well, and the happy foursome is quickly ushered out. I was compelled to admit to the doctor that yeah, I changed my mind, that was actually kind of disturbing. My imaginary friends stayed secret, dammit! Kids these days.

I am stuck, though, with the image of the doctor pantomiming a checkup on an imaginary dog. It'd be an interesting offshoot of the art form of the mime.

January 31st, 2011

*curls up and growls at the world*

1/31/1108:01 pm

So a dog died during a routine dental cleaning today. I was watching the vitals and everything was normal until it just - went south. All at once. It happened so quickly.

The doctor took an X-ray afterwards and found a severely enlarged heart. Nobody had noticed any signs that he was sick. The other tech that was there was friends with the dog's owner, so she was crying, and the doctor was just stunned. He kept saying "This wasn't supposed to happen," while I was cleaning the tools because I didn't know what the hell else to do.

The dog's name was Jake. He was only four years old.

.....

Fuck you, January. You had to get that one last blow in, didn't you? Fuck you with a rusty chainsaw.

December 9th, 2010

Of obesity management in dogs, or lack thereof.

12/9/1010:16 pm

So this dog comes in to check out a limp. She's older, has hip displasia (probably spelling that wrong), and is at least twenty pounds overweight, and Doc detects a bit of arthritis. "The best thing we can do for this dog," she tells the owner, "is get some weight off her. What do you feed her?"

"Oh, we feed her this low-calorie kibble..."

"Well, that's good."

"And she gets table scraps."

"Yeah, you'll need to cut that out. Table scraps aren't really-"

"And she gets a hot dog every day."

"Well, that's-"

"And she gets beef jerky."

"Er-"

"And she gets cheese."

"-um-"

"And she gets McDonald's."

"Dear God, man."

And you wonder why she's overweight. XD Doc was dubious about the dog's chances of regaining a girlish figure given how the guy went on, but maybe it sunk in a bit when she started horrified-laughing at him, right around the time the cheese was brought up. We can hope!

(This blog is rapidly being taken over by crazy work stories. I was afraid this would happen.)

SPEAKING OF WEIGHT LOSS, I am going to have to revamp my eating habits, because I simply do not have time or energy to exercise anymore. Mornings before work, I'd have to get up at the asscrack of dawn to have enough time to exercise* and take a shower, and when I come home from work I am just too damn wiped. This is going to be difficult, especially since after unloading this week's groceries, I have a sneaking suspicion there will be Cookies in the near future. *thinks*

*Anyone who says to me 'oh, you can't spare just thirty minutes?' is a DIRTY DIRTY LIAR. It never takes just thirty minutes, because you have to find the one bra that holds your boobs more or less in one place so you don't give yourself a concussion, and then you either dig your music player out of whatever pocket you left it in or set up the DDR if for some reason you don't feel like going outside and displaying your huffing, jiggly self to all the neighbors, and then you have to stretch, and then you have to warm up, and THEN you exercise, and then you cool down, and stretch again, and slurp down a glass of water, and that's half the morning gone right there and you are in desperate need of a shower because you are sweaty and gross. The only way exercise takes thirty minutes is if you skip the exercise.

October 5th, 2009

ZOMG.

10/5/0910:29 pm

So I was out walking today and saw that some of the neighbors have put up their Halloween decorations. Specifically, somebody has on their lawn a giant, animatronic Blackarachnia. I am seriously not kidding. O_O Legs! And hourglass! And the head turned to look at me, I swear. ...Actually, judging from the bloatedness, it kind of looked like a pregnant Blackarachnia, which is truly too terrifying to even contemplate.

I'll see if I can get a picture sometime this week.

I wonder if dressing up as Silverbolt for Halloween is an entirely silly idea.

September 30th, 2009

My 'oh Primus, what have I done' moment.

9/30/0909:53 pm

This actually happened a few days ago, but I'm just getting around to posting it.

One of my jobs as a Kennel Girl is to clean up in the lobby when somebody makes a mess.* I was summoned to do just that; a mixed-breed dog of some sort had made a solid deposit at the Bank of Linoleum. No big deal - I grab my trusty Mop and some paper towels and get to work.

Dear lord, I think, the poor man's about to cry. So I turn on my Cheerfulness full blast. "Don't worry about it!" I chirp. "This isn't the first time this has happened and it won't be the last! For this is an Animal Hospital!" There might have been some :D in there too. Working at the Renfest has prepared me for engaging with total strangers.**

I continue roughly in this vein while I'm cleaning, and as I finish, the guy finally cracks a smile. Proud and no little relieved, I return to my accustomed spot down in the kennel.

I follow the vet tech up to the exam room and there on the table is the poor man's dog, having shuffled off his mortal coil and joined the choir invisible. I just about committed seppuku with a scalpel right there. The man wasn't sad because of the poo, he was sad because he was bringing his dog in to be put to sleep, and on top of everything else he had to listen to me being cheerful at him. Sweet merciful chocolate, I suck.

...I may have apologized to the dead dog where no one could hear me. And patted his poor head.

*......hides*

*Even if the vet techs usually take care of it, because apparently I am a ninja and it's impossible to hunt me down. ;P

**Much the same way boot camp prepares you for a brisk walk around the block.

September 1st, 2009

*soggy moogle*

9/1/0909:50 pm

So, this dog. Kind of hyper. Beagle mix, but I repeat myself. She goes home tomorrow, so today I was told to give her a bath.

Most of you probably already know where this is going.

I managed to wrestle her up into the tub (which comes up to chest height on me, and this is not a small dog) and keep hold of her while I sudsed her up good. She's doing just fine, so I take my hands off her for a moment to turn on the water for the final rinse and LEAP there she goes.

Fortunately the bathing room was closed off, so she wasn't going anywhere, but I still had to chase her around with the leash. The second time around she wasn't nearly so cooperative and I practically had to carry her back to the tub. By the end of it I was soaked in sudsy water practically from head to toe. But dammit, that dog got rinsed.

...Of course, an hour later when I took her out to pee she immediately started rolling around in the grass. I'm counting my blessings; there are worse things she could've rolled in.

June 17th, 2009

I'm okay with conceptual wildlife. Actual wildlife is a pain in the ass.

6/17/0903:15 pm

So on Saturday Dad chased a Big-Ass Heron out of our backyard. Yesterday a few fish from the top pond turned up missing, and the rest are hiding under the lily pads. Uh oh.

As if that wasn't enough, we have a mouse attacking the granola bars in our pantry. Traps and poisons have so far proven ineffective. I darkly suspect that this is no ordinary mouse we're dealing with here.